XPost: alt.astrology, alt.astrology.metapsych, alt.paranormal   
   XPost: alt.psychology   
   From: Ye@h.Right   
      
   > Hi,   
      
      
   Thanks for the interesting feedback. I'll try to reply in situ.   
      
      
   > just quoting two paragraphs of your longer posting for the sake of brevity   
   > -   
   > most if not all of the deleted text would point into the same direction.   
   >   
   > Working as a computer scientist in psychology departments at different   
   > European   
   > countries I see one important mistake in your posting that I see similarly   
   > in   
   > many every-day smalltalks: psychology is not (only) Freud and Jung.   
      
   > Most things you are writing about belong to psychoanalysis and   
   > psychotherapy,   
   > labelling them as psychology is for me similarly to calling a car   
   > mechanician   
   > a physicist. Psychoanalysis etc. are based on psychology but that's it!   
      
      
   There is really little distinction between various fields from my point of   
   view. People working in that field will obviously disagree, but since I am   
   arguing against it at it's foundations it dosent make much difference.   
      
      
   > And if you look at other areas of psychology - e.g. thinking, learning,   
   > knowledge & memory, social & organizational psychology, or   
   > neuro-psychology -   
   > you will find that their findings are based on and tested by experiments   
   > fulfilling all the typical criteria for scientific experiments. There is a   
   > reason why (at least in Europe) psychology students get to clinical   
   > psychology   
   > usually not before the third year of their studies.   
      
      
   It may seem that things such as memory test would lead somewhere, but it's   
   questionable. Very doubtful that any genuine science can be done here. Lets   
   look at memory testing for a moment -   
      
   If we test the memories of various people we have to make alot of   
   assumptions. So many assumptions in fact that science becomes impossible.   
   Lets say you were testing computers instead of humans. You have a broken   
   supercomputer going up against an old IBM. The IBM wins and it seems that   
   the old IBM has a better memory, but the supercomputer really has much more   
   memory power, it was merely malfunctioning at that time, or in that   
   capacity.   
      
   Now, statistical methods might be able to control for this, but not without   
   added expense and complexity of analysis.   
      
   Then also, it is known that there are memory enhancing techniques such as   
   mnemonics. Can you be absolutely certain that none of your subjects are   
   using these techniques, either consciously or subconsciously ? Because if   
   they are using these methods, then you have'nt measured "memory", but what   
   you've measured is one's ability to use mnemonic devices. Statistics cannot   
   weed this out.   
      
   > And this does not mean that psychoanalysis, -therapy, etc. are like   
   > religions,   
   > i.e. strongly based on faith as you write. If you look, e.g., at the   
   > psychiatric   
   > medications, they are again based on medical findings.   
      
      
   Well, here the results are questionable, I would say highly suspect. In the   
   first place we are dealing with million and billion dollar drug sales, and   
   as everyone already knows, science is for sale these days. So I am very   
   skeptical of medical research in general as being corruptible by money -   
   just like problems which were observed with tobbacco safety.   
      
   But aside from that, it is known that most psychotropic medications will   
   cause a tremendous amount of damage if you're not careful. I have personally   
   seen some of the victims of this and it aint pretty at all. Most people   
   never hear anything about that, and I am therefore very suspicious about   
   drug manufacturers and doctors who give the stuff out like candy. I dont   
   think that they are honest enough to do real science anyway so I'll reserve   
   comment on that for the time being, observing only that it is really quite   
   impossible to conclude the effectiveness of a drug when used to treat a   
   non-existent illness.   
      
      
   > I think there is one point which may make understanding and accepting   
   > psychological findings quite difficult: Many issues can not (yet) be   
   > explained   
   > as "A happens because of X" but only seen in coincidences as "A and B are   
   > often   
   > happening together". The human mind and psyche are complex entities, and   
   > psychology   
   > as a science is rather young (modern psychology started little more than a   
   > century ago).   
      
      
   Thanks for the feedback Cord. I guess I'm still just sitting here waiting to   
   be convinced of the miracles which are being promised by the miracle   
   healers. I remain skeptical until I see some proof.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)